The Most/Least: Called third strikes

I am confident that the day will come when strikes and balls will be called electronically. I am equally confident that the suggestion will be met be an overwhelming amount of negativity by baseball aficionados, but very few loud arguments from batters, pitchers, or umpires.

In this World Series, Fox periodically showed us the over-the-plate camera angle which exhibited numerous things:

It showed us how good umpires are, particularly when addressing pitching on the black or just off the plate.

It showed us how bad an umpire can be when consistently, or even worse inconsistently, missing a pitch.

It showed us how good some batters are in knowing the strike zone.

It showed us how good some pitchers are in hitting their sports.

It showed us the high degree of inconsistency there is, and how poorly defined the check-swing is.

For the most part, like in the World Series, throughout the season, umpires do an excellent job in calling strikes and balls. It is only when the call is egregiously bad that our sympathy lies with complaining batter, especially on a called third strike. I say that because if the call is “strike three” and the replay indicates that pitch was an inch or so out of the strike zone, you still have to wonder why the batter is not protecting the plate under those circumstances and leaving himself open to a minutely erred decision by the ump.

We understand that there are batters who are looking for a pitch so intently that they are blind to a pitch down the middle or a breaking ball absolutely “buckles the knees” of the batter cannot comprehend how that pitch broke into the zone, but those moments are exceptions as opposed to the rule.

There are the batters who consistently take that called third strike or the pitchers who throw them, who are simply purveyors of pain.

The Whiffers

Let’s begin by looking at this season’s strikeout leaders. Obviously, it stands to reason that they each will have their fair share of called strike threes, but the range in the top 10 whiffers is pretty large.

The Good Guys with the Good Eyes

Here are the players with the fewest called strike threes. Now, at first glance I would have accepted these on face value but Adam Jones reminded me that in order to get to take a strike three, you have to get to strike two and by his walk total (only 25 in 689 PA) we can see that he is up there swinging which is why you really have to love the plate discipline of those batters who see over five pitches per plate appearance.

Don’t even try to generalize

Before you even consider trying to generalize whether a good team does not take a lot of called strikes and bad team takes many, let me tell you that the runaway NL East champion Atlanta Braves took the fourth most called third strikes and the World Champion Boston Red Sox took the sixth most called third strikes.

2013 Called Strike Three by Team

K

P/PA

1. Houston Astros

391

4.76

2. Minnesota Twins

379

4.82

3. New York Mets

359

4.91

4. Atlanta Braves

334

4.86

5. Washington Nationals

329

4.88

6. Boston Red Sox

322

5.04

7. Tampa Bay Rays

316

4.96

8. Cleveland Indians

314

4.82

9. New York Yankees

299

4.84

10. Pittsburgh Pirates

298

4.90

11. San Diego Padres

295

4.69

12. Seattle Mariners

288

4.85

13. St. Louis Cardinals

281

4.88

14. Oakland Athletics

280

5.04

15. Arizona Diamondbacks

280

4.81

16. Chicago Cubs

279

4.90

17. Philadelphia Phillies

276

4.83

18. Los Angeles Angels

274

4.89

19. Miami Marlins

270

4.76

20. Toronto Blue Jays

267

5.11

21. Cincinnati Reds

265

4.94

22. Chicago White Sox

265

4.85

23. San Francisco Giants

264

4.90

24. Colorado Rockies

263

4.85

25. Milwaukee Brewers

261

4.82

26. Texas Rangers

247

5.02

27. Los Angeles Dodgers

246

4.71

28. Baltimore Orioles

245

4.82

29. Detroit Tigers

231

4.94

30. Kansas City Royals

226

4.80

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Good pitchers throw good pitches

Here are the 2013 pitchers who threw the most called third strikes. I think you would be quite happy to have any of these guys on your team.

Peter Gammons

Peter Gammons is a Hall of Fame baseball columnist and he has covered the game of baseball for the Boston Globe, ESPN and the MLB Network. GammonsDaily.com features analysis from Peter Gammons as well as some of nation's top baseball analysts.